D.A.-elect has full plate as she confronts her next challenge









As a junior at UC Irvine in 1978, Jackie Lacey was featured in a Seventeen magazine article profiling 13 young women. The first in her family to go to college, she had recently switched her career plan from being a grade school teacher to a lawyer.


"I can do more in the legal process to help people," Lacey, then 21, told the magazine. "I've seen so many black people cheated by tradesmen or intimidated by the police because they have no knowledge of their legal rights. I'd like to help change that."


Back then, Lacey said, becoming a prosecutor was the last thing on her agenda. The attorneys the black community looked up to were defense attorneys and civil rights lawyers.





"'Prosecutor, what is that? Is that the person who puts people in jail?' — that's the view I had of the prosecutor's office," she said.


But that view changed. Earlier this month L.A. County voters elected Lacey district attorney, capping a 26-year career in the nation's largest prosecutorial office. She also broke down some barriers, something noticed by many, including hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.


"Congrats to Jackie Lacey who became the first woman and African American to be elected District Attorney of Los Angeles! LETS GO! POWERFUL," Combs tweeted the day after the election.


She drew other celebrity supporters, including former basketball star Magic Johnson and R&B singer Macy Gray, who performed at Lacey's election night party, confiding to the audience that she had been wooed by the candidate's promise to have her over for peach cobbler.


The new D.A.-elect is going to have little time to celebrate her victory or perhaps even bake that cobbler. She's faced with numerous challenges, ranging from prison realignment and court closures to choosing a new leadership team.


The job will also thrust her into the limelight as never before. Despite serving as outgoing Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's second-in-command, she spent the last decade largely away from the spotlight — until she ran for office. Her opponent, prosecutor Alan Jackson, on the other hand, had gotten media attention for cases like the murder trials of music producer Phil Spector, and regularly appeared on the NBC show "Unsolved Case Squad."


Within the district attorney's office, Lacey has been known for her down-to-earth persona and collaborative leadership style.


"I would say she's probably one of the most approachable managers I've ever worked for," said Joseph Esposito, director of specialized prosecutions, who worked under Lacey when she headed the district attorney's central operations bureau. "… One thing I learned immediately is that it was absolutely OK to express my own opinion, even if it was contrary to hers."


Detractors criticized Lacey as a bureaucrat overly beholden to Cooley. In a television ad, Jackson slammed her for conflicting testimony she had given in two union grievance hearings, saying she was "a political appointee who was dishonest under oath to protect her boss." Lacey maintained that she had merely corrected her previous testimony, and called Jackson naive.


Lacey told the Times in an interview during her campaign, "I don't foam at the mouth, I don't walk around bragging. Running for office is really hard for me because I'm not used to marketing myself. But I am a determined individual. If I set my mind to something, I will work literally day and night until I am sick."


--


Lacey grew up in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, raised by blue collar parents — her father worked for the city's lot cleaning division and her mother in a garment factory and later for the school district — who had migrated from the South. Despite beginning from "scratch," as Lacey's mother, Addie Phillips, put it, they saved enough to buy their house for $30,000 and enough to send Lacey to college.


She went on to law school at USC on a scholarship, and upon graduation, joined a small entertainment law firm.


"That sounds sexy," she said. "It was the most boring job you could imagine."


Unable to stomach the succession of monotonous depositions, she jumped to the Santa Monica city attorney's office, where a friend from law school had landed. There she found that she enjoyed criminal law. She also discovered, she said, that "many of the victims are poor people, just like the people I said I wanted to help."


After moving to the district attorney's office, she eventually prosecuted hate crimes, including the case of a black homeless man in Lancaster who was beaten to death by three Nazi Lowriders.


Lacey worked under Cooley in the San Fernando courthouse and was the first person he appointed to management after his election as district attorney in 2000. Cooley appointed her as chief deputy district attorney in March 2011, shortly before announcing his own plans to retire and backing her run to replace him.


As district attorney-elect, Lacey will immediately be confronted by the hot button issue of prison realignment, which shifted responsibility for thousands of prisoners and parolees from the state to counties.


"That's the overall biggest problem everyone has in the criminal justice system," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and Loyola Law School professor. "…If she can just deal with realignment, she will be a huge success."


Lacey acknowledged that realignment has not so far brought the "Armageddon" of spiking crimes rates that some predicted, but still called it a threat to public safety, citing the potential for jail overcrowding and concerns about the system's ability to monitor released prisoners.


Lacey has said she wants to move quickly to expand the county's alternative sentencing programs for veterans, female parolees and people with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems, although she is still working out the mechanics of how to do it. Offering alternative sentencing to more low-level offenders would ensure that the jails have room for more serious criminals and that courts, not sheriff's officials, would decide how long offenders will spend in jail, she said.


At the same time, Lacey supports reclassifying some nonviolent offenders, including high-level drug dealers and some identity theft perpetrators, to make them eligible for state prison time.


She has also promised to expand prosecutions of identity theft and environmental crimes — the office currently has only one investigator dedicated to that role — and has pledged to continue to support the public integrity unit, a pet project of Cooley's. That unit has prosecuted officials in Bell, Vernon and elsewhere on public corruption charges.


Lacey's first move as district attorney, however, will be to appoint people to her leadership team. So far, she has declined to say whom she is considering.


abby.sewell@latimes.com





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Wii U Will Launch With 24 Games This Sunday
















Assassin’s Creed III


A version of the latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga, a week after it was released on other console.


Click here to view this gallery.













[More from Mashable: Xbox Live Celebrates 10 Years of Connecting Gamers]


Nintendo’s newest console is out this Sunday, and there are already people lining up outside retailers to get one.


There are 24 games available for the Wii U at launch. Some are highly anticipated Nintendo staples, like New Super Mario Brothers U, and some are interesting and creative titles from third-party developers, like Scribblenauts Unlimited and ZombiU. Many games already out on other systems are being released for the Wii U as well, including Assassin’s Creed III and NBA 2K13; some of these games even have extra functionality that’s been added to take advantage of the Wii U GamePad.


[More from Mashable: Competitive Gaming Seeing TV-Levels of Viewership in 2012]


If you don’t see a game in the gallery above that you thought was coming to the Wii U, it’s because many announced games will be available in the “launch window”, a broad period from now until March. That’s when games like Pikmin 3 and LEGO City Undercover will come out.


If you haven’t preordered a Wii U from a large retailer, many places will still have them available at launch day. Expect long lines at larger retailers though.


Are you planning on purchasing a Wii U this weekend, and what games do you most want to buy? Let us know in the comments.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Lady Gaga tweets some racy images before concert

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Lady Gaga's tweets were getting a lot of attention ahead of her Buenos Aires concert Friday night.

The Grammy-winning entertainer has more than 30 million followers on Twitter and that's where she shared a link this week to a short video showing her doing a striptease and fooling around in a bathtub with two other women.

She told her followers that it's a "surprise for you, almost ready for you to TASTE."

Then, in between concerts in Brazil and Argentina, she posted a picture Thursday on her Twitter page showing her wallowing in her underwear and impossibly high heels on top of the remains of what appears to be a strawberry shortcake.

"The real CAKE isn't HAVING what you want, it's DOING what you want," she tweeted.

Lady Gaga wore decidedly unglamorous baggy jeans and a blouse outside her Buenos Aires hotel Thursday as three burly bodyguards kept her fans at bay. Another pre-concert media event where she was supposed to be given "guest of honor" status by the city government Friday afternoon was cancelled.

After Argentina, she is scheduled to perform in Santiago, Chile; Lima, Peru; and Asuncion, Paraguay, before taking her "Born This Way Ball" tour to Africa, Europe and North America.

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The Neediest Cases: Emerging From a Bleak Life to Become Fabulous Phil





For years, Phillip Johnson was caught in what seemed like an endless trench of bad luck. He was fired from a job, experienced intensifying psychological problems, lost his apartment and spent time in homeless shelters. At one point, he was hospitalized after overdosing on an antipsychotic drug.




“I had a rough road,” he said.


Since his hospital stay two years ago, and despite setbacks, Mr. Johnson, 27, has been getting his life on track. At Brooklyn Community Services, where he goes for daily counseling and therapy, everybody knows him as Fabulous Phil.


“Phillip is a light, the way he evokes happiness in other people,” his former caseworker, Teresa O’Brien, said. “Phillip’s character led directly to his nickname.”


About six months ago, with Ms. O’Brien’s help, Mr. Johnson started an event: Fabulous Phil Friday Dance Party Fridays.


One recent afternoon at the agency, 30 clients and a few counselors were eating cake, drinking soft drinks and juice, and grooving for 45 minutes to Jay-Z and Drake pulsating from a boom box.


Mr. Johnson’s voice rose with excitement when he talked about the party. Clients and counselors, he said, “enjoy themselves.”


“They connect more; they communicate more,” he continued. “Everybody is celebrating and laughing.”


The leadership Mr. Johnson now displays seems to be a far cry from the excruciatingly introverted person he was.


As an only child living with his single mother in public housing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, he said, he tended to isolate himself. “A lot of kids my age would say, ‘Come outside,’ but I would always stay in my room,” he said. He occupied himself by writing comic books or reading them, his favorites being Batman and Spiderman because, he said, “they were heroes who saved the day.”


After graduating from high school in 2003, he worked odd jobs until 2006, when he took a full-time position at a food court at La Guardia Airport, where he helped to clean up. The steady paycheck allowed him to leave his mother’s apartment and rent a room in Queens.


But the depression and bleak moods that had shadowed him throughout middle and high school asserted themselves.


“My thinking got confused,” he said. “Racing thoughts through my mind. Disorganized thoughts. I had a hard time focusing on one thing.”


In 2008, after two years on the job, Mr. Johnson was fired for loud and inappropriate behavior, and for being “unpredictable,” he said. The boss said he needed counseling. He moved back in with his mother, and in 2009 entered a program at an outpatient addiction treatment service, Bridge Back to Life. It was there, he said, that he received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and help with his depression and marijuana use.


But one evening in May 2010, he had a bout with insomnia.


He realized the antipsychotic medication he had been prescribed, Risperdal, made him feel tired, he said, so he took 12 of the pills, rather than his usual dosage of two pills twice a day. When 12 did not work, he took 6 more.


“The next morning when I woke up, it was hard for me to breathe,” he said.


He called an ambulance, which took to Woodhull Hospital. He was released after about a month.


Not long after, he returned to his mother’s apartment, but by February 2011, they both decided he should leave, and he relocated to a homeless shelter in East New York, where, he said, eight other people were crammed into his cubicle and there were “bedbugs, people lying in your bed, breaking into your locker to steal your stuff.”


In late spring 2011, he found a room for rent in Manhattan, but by Thanksgiving he was hospitalized again. Another stint in a shelter followed in April, when his building was sold.


Finally, in July, Mr. Johnson moved to supported housing on Staten Island, where he lives with a roommate. His monthly $900 Social Security disability check is sent to the residence, which deducts $600 for rent and gives him $175 in spending money; he has breakfast and lunch at the Brooklyn agency. To assist Mr. Johnson with unexpected expenses, a grant of $550 through The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund went to buy him a bed and pay a Medicare prescription plan fee for three months.


“I was so happy I have a bed to sleep on,” he said about the replacement for an air mattress. “When I have a long day, I have a bed to lay in, and I feel good about that.”


Mr. Johnson’s goals include getting his driver’s license — “I already have a learner’s permit,” he said, proudly — finishing his program at the agency, and then entering an apprenticeship program to become a plumber, carpenter or mechanic.


But seeing how his peers have benefited from Fabulous Phil Fridays has made him vow to remain involved with people dealing with mental illnesses or substance abuse.


He was asked at the party: Might he be like the comic-book heroes he loves? A smile spread across his face. He seemed to think so.


Read More..

Black Friday: A survival guide



Shopping












The plan | The numbers | The gear | The strategy | The apps | The start






Black Friday, the most buzzed-about shopping day of the year, is starting even earlier this holiday season as retailers try to get a jump on the competition.

The official kickoff to the Christmas shopping rush, the day after Thanksgiving brings out millions of bargain hunters looking to score new tablets, flat-panel TVs, clothes and toys. Last year retailers raked in an estimated $11.4 billion on Black Friday, up 6.6% from 2010.

This year, major retailers including Wal-Mart and Toys R Us are opening their doors as early as 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. That’s too bad for store employees, but good news if you’re a shopaholic who doesn’t mind hitting the shops before the turkey has cooled.

For those of you who are planning to brave the crowds, whether you’re a first-timer or a seasoned veteran, here’s a guide to surviving the Black Friday rush.


-- Andrea Chang



























Photo credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times










Photo credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times










Photo credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times










Photo credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times










Photo credit: Seong Joon Cho / Bloomberg










Photo credit: Associated Press






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Obama and Boehner upbeat after 'fiscal cliff' meeting









WASHINGTON — The outline of a compromise over impending tax hikes and spending cuts began to come into focus Friday after President Obama convened top congressional leaders at the White House.


Differences remain, especially as Republicans, led in the House by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, continue to fight to keep tax rates for the wealthiest Americans from rising.


But the contours of a two-stage deal are taking shape as leaders work to avert a year-end fiscal crisis and break the gridlock that has soured voters on Washington. The mood alone, with Obama congratulating Boehner on his birthday Saturday and Republican and Democratic leaders taking turns speaking to signify their unity, signaled a sharp change from past confrontations.





"We have the cornerstones of being able to work something out," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, as leaders from both parties emerged from the White House. "This is not something we're going to wait until the last day of December to get done. We have a plan. We're going to move forward on it."


Boehner, who presented his framework for a broad tax-and-spending overhaul to be undertaken in 2013, also sounded an optimistic note.


"To show our seriousness, we've put revenue on the table, as long as it's accompanied by significant spending cuts," Boehner said. "It's going to be incumbent on my colleagues to show the American people we're serious."


The first part of such a deal would be legislation this year that would commit Congress to specific revenue increases, favored by Democrats, and spending cuts, as advocated by Republicans. How those increases and cuts would be achieved would be worked out in the second stage next year by the new Congress.


Not addressed was how to resolve the standoff over this year's expiring tax rates. Resolving the tax breaks for wealthier Americans remains, in many ways, the linchpin to a deal.


Obama and Boehner appeared more comfortable together than a year ago, when they tried — and failed — to reach a $4-trillion deficit-reduction deal that many economists have warned is vital for the nation's long-term fiscal health.


The two leading actors exchanged a light moment as the president wished the speaker, who turns 63 on Saturday, a happy birthday and gave the known Merlot fan an expensive bottle of Italian red wine.


"My hope is this is going to be the beginning of a fruitful process that we're able to come to agreement on that will reduce our deficit in a balanced way, that we will deal with some of these long-term impediments to growth, and we're also going to be focusing on making sure that middle-class families are able to get ahead," Obama said as he opened the meeting in the Roosevelt Room. "We're going to get to work."


Friday's closed-door gathering was the first such sit-down since the election, which emboldened Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill. Americans spoke at the polls, they maintain, preferring the Democratic approach, which asks the wealthiest taxpayers to contribute more revenue while preventing steep spending to domestic cuts.


To rank-and-file Republicans, though, the election results signaled that voters want the GOP House majority to hold a final "line of defense," as Boehner puts it, against what they see as government overreach.


Efforts to raise new tax revenue while cutting spending has eluded the parties in the past, but this year's built-in deadline could give them a boost.


Unless Congress acts, taxes will rise on most Americans, a $2,000 average hit as current rates expire on Dec. 31. Massive federal spending cuts scheduled to begin Jan. 2 would cut across defense and domestic accounts, pulling funds out of the economy. Together, they have been referred to as a "fiscal cliff."


A shift can be heard in the rhetoric, as Republicans now say they are willing to consider increases in tax revenue, and Obama has softened his insistence that top income tax rates, now at 35%, must rise to 39.6%, the rate from the Clinton era.


"We all understand where we are," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. "We're prepared to put revenue on the table provided we fix the real problem, even though most of my members, I think without exception, believe that we're in the dilemma we're in not because we tax too little but because we spend too much."


During the hourlong session Friday, Boehner presented his proposal to have the parties agree to targets for new tax revenues and spending cuts, which would be bound by statute and enacted in 2013.


Tax revenue could be raised by closing tax loopholes or capping deductions for the wealthiest Americans — couples earning incomes above $250,000, or $200,000 for singles. Such a broad deal would also require Democrats to agree to rein in spending on Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs as Obama has previously proposed.


Both sides agreed to begin working now on the 2013 framework. Nothing will be decided until after the Thanksgiving holiday.


Obama has repeatedly sought to pressure House Republicans to at least extend the expiring tax rates for those who do not earn above $250,000. The Senate has already passed a bill that would do so, preventing a New Year's tax hike on the middle class, while talks continue over tax rates for the wealthy.


House Republicans have refused to budge, and Boehner gave no indication Friday he would allow rates to rise.


lisa.mascaro@latimes.com





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News Summary: UK court overturns Facebook demotion
















PUNISHED: Britain‘s High Court ruled Friday that a man had been unfairly stripped of a management position and demoted for saying in a Facebook post that he was opposed to gay marriage.


COURT RULING: The court said the Trafford Housing Trust breached Adrian Smith‘s contract and a judge added that Smith had not done anything wrong. Smith had written on Facebook that gay weddings in churches would be “an equality too far.”













EVOLVING LAW: In Britain, same-sex couples can form civil partnerships that carry the same legal rights marriages do. The government plans to introduce legislation allowing civil marriages as well.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Lady Gaga tweets some racy images before concert

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Lady Gaga's tweets were getting a lot of attention ahead of her Buenos Aires concert Friday night.

The Grammy-winning entertainer has more than 30 million followers on Twitter and that's where she shared a link this week to a short video showing her doing a striptease and fooling around in a bathtub with two other women.

She told her followers that it's a "surprise for you, almost ready for you to TASTE."

Then, in between concerts in Brazil and Argentina, she posted a picture Thursday on her Twitter page showing her wallowing in her underwear and impossibly high heels on top of the remains of what appears to be a strawberry shortcake.

"The real CAKE isn't HAVING what you want, it's DOING what you want," she tweeted.

Lady Gaga wore decidedly unglamorous baggy jeans and a blouse outside her Buenos Aires hotel Thursday as three burly bodyguards kept her fans at bay. Another pre-concert media event where she was supposed to be given "guest of honor" status by the city government Friday afternoon was cancelled.

After Argentina, she is scheduled to perform in Santiago, Chile; Lima, Peru; and Asuncion, Paraguay, before taking her "Born This Way Ball" tour to Africa, Europe and North America.

Read More..

N.F.L. Paid Millions Over Brain Injuries, Article Says





Three retired N.F.L. players received at least $2 million in disability payments as a result of brain trauma injuries from their playing days, according to an article by ESPN and the PBS series “Frontline.”




The payments were made in the 1990s and early 2000s by the Bell/Rozelle N.F.L. Player Retirement Plan, a committee comprising representatives of the owners, players and the N.F.L. commissioner.


The N.F.L. is being sued by several thousand retired players who accuse the league of concealing a link between hits to the head and brain injuries. The league denies the accusation and has said it did not mislead its players.


The article, however, cites a letter written in 2000 from the director of the retirement plan who stated that Mike Webster, who retired in 1990, had a disability that was “the result of head injuries he suffered as a football player with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Kansas City Chiefs.”


Webster died in 2002. The article cites similar payments to Gerry Sullivan, a lineman for the Browns, and a third, unnamed player.


The article provides more details than were known about Webster’s case; his fight for disability benefits was known. The retired players say that “the N.F.L.’s own physician independently examined Webster and concluded that Webster was mentally ‘completely and totally disabled as of the date of his retirement and was certainly disabled when he stopped playing football sometime in 1990.’ ”


However, Greg Aiello, a spokesman for the N.F.L., said that the ESPN report “underscores that we have had a system in place with the union for many years to address player injury claims on a case-by-case basis.” The disability plan, he said, was “collectively bargained with the players.”


“All decisions concerning player injury claims are made by the disability plan’s board, not by the N.F.L. or by the Players Association,” Aiello said.


The board has seven members: three owner representatives, three player representatives and one nonvoting representative of the commissioner.


The disclosures in the article came a day after Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he trumpeted the league’s efforts to increase the safety of its players and proclaimed that “medical decisions override everything else.”


Jeffrey Standen, a law professor at Willamette University in Oregon, said the details about Webster’s disability payments did not amount to a smoking gun. The plan’s determination that Webster sustained head injuries is not the same as the N.F.L. making that decision.


“The problem is the N.F.L. didn’t make the admission; it was the board,” Standen said. “They’re not the same body. As a legal matter, the fact that they paid Webster is not going to matter much in legal terms. But it’s evidence to throw in front of a jury.”


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FHA lacks reserves to cover losses









WASHINGTON — As the housing market recovers, one government agency is still paying the price for helping to stabilize it — and taxpayers could get the bill.


The Federal Housing Administration, whose mortgage insurance business skyrocketed during the Great Recession of 2007-09, said Friday that its reserves to cover losses dropped into negative territory for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.


Quiz: The week in business








The agency has $30.3 billion in cash reserves to cover $46.6 billion in projected losses in coming years — a shortfall of $16.3 billion that could force it to tap the U.S. Treasury for the first time in its 78-year history to shore up its finances.


"Clearly, they're in trouble financially," said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. "I don't think there's any argument that FHA was ill-equipped to handle that overnight change to their business volume, and they've been playing catch-up ever since."


The FHA insures loans with down payments of as low as 3.5%, often to low-income borrowers, and its role in the mortgage market began expanding dramatically in 2007 as banks pulled back on lending in the face of plunging home prices — unless the agency guaranteed the loans.


Those mortgages, many of them now underwater, are a major drag on the finances of an agency that has been funded entirely through insurance premiums.


"With its dual mission of providing access to homeownership for underserved populations and supporting the housing market during tough times, there is little doubt that FHA helped prevent a much deeper crisis," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told reporters.


"That progress, however, has not been without stress," he conceded.


The FHA's net worth must not drop below 2% of the outstanding balances of the loans it guarantees. But in its annual actuarial report to Congress, the agency said its reserve ratio ended the fiscal year at -1.44%, down from the seriously low level of 0.24% at the end of the previous fiscal year. The figure was 0.5% at the end of 2010.


A final determination on tapping into Treasury's funds would not come until September and could hinge on continued improvement in the housing market, officials said. The agency also plans to boost its reserves by making such changes as increasing the premiums it charges homeowners to back their loans.


Obama administration officials hope the changes will help the FHA avoid drawing money from the U.S. Treasury, which the agency has the authority to do without seeking congressional approval.


"We are taking all the actions that we feel are appropriate, including increase in premiums [and] including changes in policies, to ensure that we are generating appropriate revenue moving forward," said acting FHA Commissioner Carol Galante.


"It is literally impossible to say that we will or won't need a draw," she said. "We are doing all of this to increase the likelihood that we will not."


The FHA's expanded role in the housing market has drawn criticism from some lawmakers and analysts, especially in light of the bailouts of seized housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


Taxpayers are on the hook for $137 billion in those rescues, though Fannie and Freddie have turned profitable and have started paying down what they owe.


But FHA's finances have been getting worse. One specific criticism is the agency's practice of lending to so-called rebound buyers, people who defaulted on a mortgage as recently as three years earlier.


Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), said he was "deeply concerned" by Friday's FHA report and would call Donovan to testify about how to get the agency on a fiscally sustainable path.


Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) said the news of FHA's deteriorating finances was not surprising given warnings about its finances in recent years.


"This is yet another example in which the government has stepped in, mispriced risk, acted as a backstop and put the taxpayer in a position of bailing them out," he said. He blamed the Obama administration for not doing more to stabilize the agency's finances.


But Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) noted that the FHA has helped millions of people buy homes since it was created in the Great Depression. And although the agency's finances are in trouble, she said, Congress "should not act precipitously to limit loan availability, especially as the housing recovery remains fragile."


In 2009, the agency boosted premiums and took other steps to shore up its capital reserves. But the FHA's finances continued to be dragged down by the loans it backed from 2007 to 2009, Donovan said.


Mortgages backed by the agency in the last two years are performing much better, he said.


The FHA insures more than $1 trillion worth of mortgages. It has backed about 14% of new mortgages this year, up from less than 5% in 2007 but down from a high of nearly 30% in 2008.


The White House will use the report to help make its own projections of agency funding as part of President Obama's 2014 budget, to be released in February. At that point, the administration would determine whether taxpayer money is needed to prop up the FHA, with a final determination coming at the end of the fiscal year in September.


Continued improvement in the housing market would help the FHA's long-term outlook. And the changes coming soon also will help generate more revenue and reduce future losses, officials said.


The FHA plans to increase mortgage insurance premiums by about $13 a month for the average homeowner for new loans it guarantees, as well as end a policy for future loans that allowed homeowners to stop paying insurance premiums before the loan was paid off.


Among other changes are selling off at least 40,000 delinquent loans a year and streamlining short sales to reduce losses from foreclosures.


jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com





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Investigators find major flaws in L.A. Fire Department data









A long-awaited review of the Los Angeles Fire Department found the agency relied on inaccurate data, which provided the public with an erroneous portrait of the department’s performance that was used to make critical staffing decisions.

“All prior reporting data should not be relied upon until they are properly recalculated and validated,” the task force appointed by Fire Chief Brian Cummings concluded.

While the Fire Department has acknowledged some mistakes in its data, the 32-page report found more widespread problems and delves more deeply into a series of factors that contributed to the faulty figures. Among other things, the experts found systemic flaws in a 30-year-old computerized dispatch network and a lack of adequate training for firefighters assigned to complex data analysis.





INTERACTIVE: Check response times in your L.A. neighborhood


The probe was launched after department officials acknowledged earlier this year that LAFD performance reports released to City Hall leaders and the public made it appear rescuers were getting to emergencies faster than they actually were.

The task force report, scheduled to be discussed Tuesday by the Fire Commission, said the department has corrected the computer-system flaws that led to the inaccurate figures.

“The No. 1 goal was to restore confidence in the Fire Department's statistics in the eyes of the public and city leaders,” said Fire Commissioner Alan Skobin, who helped oversee the report. “We now have the ability to identify and pull out accurate data.”


Still, the report paints a picture of a department woefully behind in using technology to help speed up emergency responses and improve efficiency by analyzing thousands of dispatch records that churn through the department's computer system each day.

The report recommends installing GPS devices on fire units so dispatchers know their location at all times, an upgrade that has been discussed since at least 2009. That could ensure that the closest rescuers are sent to those in need.

The task force also said upgrades or replacement of the aging computer system at the heart of dispatch operations may be needed, as well as hiring professional analysts to scrutinize the data.

Some money has been set aside to help pay for the GPS upgrade and the dispatch system changes. But whether all the changes raised in the report could be funded is unclear, given that the LAFD already is projected to run a $5.2-million deficit in its current budget.

The report’s findings in some ways parallel recent probes by City Controller Wendy Greuel and Jeffrey Godown, an expert brought in by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as questions grew about the department’s performance figures.

The task force includes members of the chief’s own staff, as well as experts from USC, the RAND Corp. and the Los Angeles Police Department’s COMPSTAT unit, which is recognized for its crime data analysis.

Indeed, the Fire Department hopes to roll out its own version of the LAPD’s data-reporting system, called FIRESTATLA. It would allow managers, elected officials and the public access to regularly updated reports on detailed response times and other statistics by neighborhood, Skobin said. The new system is estimated to cost up to $500,000, he said.

In March, fire officials acknowledged that they had changed the way in which they evaluated response times without telling the public or city officials. Their method made it appear that crews surpassed national standards more frequently than they actually did.

Those faulty statistics were used by Cummings and other top fire officials to push for a new cost-cutting deployment plan that shut down firetrucks and ambulances at more than one-fifth of the city's 106 firehouses. Cummings initially defended the department’s data when questions arose about its accuracy.

Later, he acknowledged that yet another set of numbers used in reports on the proposed deployment changes were projections, not actual response times. Some council members said they might not have voted for the budget cuts had they been aware that projections were used.

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Andre 3000 isn't in a rush to record new album

NEW YORK (AP) — In order to capture his best version of Jimi Hendrix for an upcoming biopic, Andre 3000 said he had to think of him as a regular dude and not a rock star.

"I didn't look at him as an icon because when you're in it, you don't know you're an icon. You don't know you're an icon until another people say you're an icon," the 37-year-old said in an interview Tuesday.

"So I had to take it as a person, you know what I mean? And I just tried to say, 'Well, what would Jimi want people to know that they can't get off of YouTube?' And that's how I approached it," he said.

Hendrix died at age 27 in 1970. He was ranked No. 1 on Rolling Stone magazine's greatest guitarists of all-time list. His band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, is known for iconic albums such as "Electric Ladyland" and "Are You Experienced."

"All Is by My Side," which focuses on the early days of Hendrix's career, will be released next year. Andre 3000 is excited to see the film, which he's finished shooting in Ireland. He believes the public "will be pleased."

Andre 3000, one-half of OutKast with Big Boi, has been out of the music scene in recent years, although he's been featured on songs by Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Rick Ross, Ke$ha and Young Jeezy.

OutKast's 2006 platinum-selling album, "Idlewild," which accompanied a film of the same name starring the duo, was their last album. Their 11-time platinum "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" won the 2004 Grammy Award for album of the year.

Big Boi, who released a solo album two years ago to welcoming reviews, will release a new solo disc, "Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors," next month.

But Andre 3000 isn't in a rush to record an album.

"Some days I feel like I'll do it, some days I don't. Some days I feel like I don't need to, some days I feel like I want to do it before I die. So, I don't know where to fall. I am just hoping one day I get that inspiration," he said at an event for Gillette's eMO'gency Styler Tour, which supports men's health and prostate cancer programs. The tour kicked off in New York, with stops scheduled in Chicago and Houston.

"It's a feeling for me. Like, I can't just throw out an album to be rapping," he said. "And I don't even know if it will be rap. I don't even know what it will be."

However, he could find the inspiration and complete an album in just a few days: "It could be a rush situation. Like if I feel that feeling and I record an album in three days and I'm like, 'This is what I want to say right now' — that can happen, too."

He also says he's constantly writing songs.

"I write all the time. ... I actually stopped typing it in my phone because like a cloud is basically reading every thought that I have and I don't like that," he said. "So I went back to my paper and started writing."

He's not sure fans want a new OutKast album for the right reasons.

"Man, we've had a great ride. ... Like when we got into it when we were high school kids and we just wanted to do something fun and push it, and if it's not that then why do it?" he said.

"I'm not the type that prescribes to nostalgia, and most people say they want an OutKast album because they used to love it. Y'all don't even know if y'all still love it. You just know you used to love it. But you may not like it now, who knows?"

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/musicmesfin

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I Was Misinformed: The Time She Tried Viagra





I have noticed, in the bragging-rights department, that “he doesn’t need Viagra” has become the female equivalent of the male “and, I swear, she’s a real blonde.” Personally, I do not care a bit. To me, anything that keeps you happy and in the game is a good thing.




But then, I am proud to say, I was among the early, and from what I gather, rare female users.


It happened when the drug was introduced around 1998. I was 50, but after chemotherapy for breast cancer — and later, advanced ovarian cancer — I was, hormonally speaking, pretty much running on fumes. Whether this had diminished my sex drive I did not yet know. One may have Zorba-esque impulses when a cancer diagnosis first comes in; but a treatment that leaves you bald, moon-faced and exhausted knocks that out of your system pretty fast.


But by 1998, the cancer was gone, my hair was back and I was ready to get back in the game. I was talking to an endocrinologist when I brought up Viagra. This was not to deal with the age-related physical changes I knew it would not address, it was more along the feminist lines of equal pay for equal work: if men have this new sex drug, I want this new sex drug.


“I know it’s supposed to work by increasing blood flow,” I told the doctor, “But if that’s true for men, shouldn’t it be true for women, too?”


“You’re the third woman who asked me that this week,” he said.


He wrote me a prescription. I was not seeing anyone, so I understood that I would have to do both parts myself, but that was fine. I have a low drug threshold and figured it might be best the first time to fly solo. My memory of the directions are hazy: I think there was a warning that one might have a facial flush or headaches or drop dead of a heart attack; that you were to take a pill at least an hour before you planned to get lucky, and, as zero hour approached, you were supposed to help things along by thinking beautiful thoughts, kind of like Peter Pan teaching Wendy and the boys how to fly.


But you know how it is: It’s hard to think beautiful thoughts when you’re wondering, “Is it happening? Do I feel anything? Woof, woof? Hello, sailor? Naaah.”


After about an hour, however, I was aware of a dramatic change. I had developed a red flush on my face; I was a hot tomato, though not the kind I had planned. I had also developed a horrible headache. The sex pill had turned into a bad joke: Not now, honey, I have a headache.


I put a cold cloth on my head and went to sleep. But here’s where it got good: When I slept, I dreamed; one of those extraordinary, sensual, swimming in silk sort of things. I woke up dazed and glowing with just one thought: I gotta get this baby out on the highway and see what it can do.


A few months later I am fixed up with a guy, and after a time he is, under the Seinfeldian definition of human relations (Saturday night date assumed) my official boyfriend. He is middle aged, in good health. How to describe our romantic life with the delicacy a family publication requires? Perhaps a line from “Veronika, der Lenz ist da” (“Veronica, Spring Is Here”), a song popularized by the German group the Comedian Harmonists: “Veronika, der Spargel Wächst” (“Veronica, the asparagus are blooming”). On the other hand, sometimes not. And so, one day, I put it out there in the manner of sport:


“Want to drop some Viagra?” I say.


Here we go again, falling into what I am beginning to think is an inevitable pattern: lying there like a lox, or two loxes, waiting for the train to pull into the station. (Yes, I know it’s a mixed metaphor, but at least I didn’t bring in the asparagus.) So there we are, waiting. And then, suddenly, spring comes to Suffolk County. It’s such a presence. I’m wondering if I should ask it if it hit traffic on the L.I.E. We sit there staring.


My reaction is less impressive. I don’t get a headache this time. And romantically, things are more so, but not so much that I feel compelled to try the little blue pills again.


Onward roll the years. I have a new man in my life, who is 63. He does have health problems, for which his doctor prescribes an E.D. drug. I no longer have any interest in them. My curiosity has been satisfied. Plus I am deeply in love, an aphrodisiac yet to be encapsulated in pharmaceuticals.


We take a vacation in mountain Mexico. We pop into a drugstore to pick up sunscreen and spot the whole gang, Cialis, Viagra, Levitra, on a shelf at the checkout counter. No prescription needed in Mexico, the clerk says. We buy all three drugs and return to the hotel. I try some, he tries some. In retrospect, given the altitude and his health, we are lucky we did not kill him. I came across an old photo the other day. He is on the bed, the drugs in their boxes lined up a in a semi-circle around him. He looks a bit dazed and his nose is red.


Looking at the picture, I wonder if he had a cold.


Then I remember: the flush, the damn flush. If I had kids, I suppose I would have to lie about it.



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Jill Kelley, key figure in David Petraeus scandal, led lavish life









TAMPA, Fla. — When Jill Kelley believed a reporter was trespassing at her white-columned mansion in a wealthy neighborhood this week, the Tampa socialite called 911 and claimed diplomatic immunity.

"I'm an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability," an exasperated Kelley told the dispatcher in recordings released by police. "I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well."

Kelley isn't a diplomat; she holds the ceremonial title of "honorary consul" for South Korea, one of many informal ties to prestige and power that the energetic 37-year-old mother of three has brandished to climb to the top rungs of the social ladder in this conservative military community.





Kelley, the wife of a cancer surgeon, has a thin resume, a troubled family, shaky finances and a reputation for being, as one acquaintance here put it, "Tampa Kardashian." Now she is central to an unfolding scandal that has forced out David H. Petraeus as CIA director, threatens the career of Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, and cast previously unknown figures and a sex affair into international notoriety.

Kelley's complaint to the FBI last summer that she was being harassed by email triggered the investigation that uncovered Petraeus' extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, author of those emails. The inquiry also uncovered what the Pentagon has called 20,000 to 30,000 pages of possibly "inappropriate communication" between Kelley and Allen, whose nomination to a prestigious assignment overseeing all NATO military has been put on hold.

Allen "intends to fully cooperate with the inspector general investigators and directed his staff to do the same," his lawyer, Col. John Baker, the chief defense counsel of the Marine Corps, said in a statement Wednesday. "To the extent there are questions about certain communications by Gen. Allen, he shares in the desire to resolve those questions as completely and quickly as possible."

The Army suspended Broadwell's security clearance, which gave her access to classified information. She is a lieutenant colonel and intelligence officer in the Army Reserve.

President Obama said at a White House news conference that he had seen "no evidence at this point" that classified information had been compromised, but noted that the FBI investigation was continuing. He praised Petraeus, who resigned Friday, for his "extraordinary career" in the military and CIA. "We are safer because of the work Dave Petraeus has done," he said.

From 2008 to 2010, Petraeus headed Central Command, which runs U.S. military operations in the Middle East, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The command is based at MacDill Air Force Base, on a spit of land that juts into Tampa Bay. The base also is home to U.S. Special Operations Command and hosts representatives from 60 nations that joined together to fight terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001.

Balmy weather, a sparkling bay and a military-friendly population have made Tampa a welcome posting for officers and a favorite spot for retirees like Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had a booth at the Palm steakhouse, where his caricature adorns the wall — along with those of two other regulars, Scott and Jill Kelley.

Life here was a step up for Jill Kelley. Born in Beirut, she moved in the mid-1970s with her family to northeast Philadelphia, where they were the "oddballs" in a mostly Irish and German neighborhood, said Kelley's brother, David Khawam. The family opened restaurants in the area, he told reporters.

Scott and Jill Kelley moved to Tampa about a decade ago when Scott, who specializes in surgery for esophageal cancer, was hired by a local hospital. In June 2004, they purchased a 5,500-square-foot red-brick home on Bayshore Boulevard in the city's ritziest neighborhood.

With her dark tresses, high-wattage smile and gregarious personality, Kelley was a natural hostess. She became known for holding Champagne-and-caviar parties on a manicured front lawn, complete with billowing white tents and valet parking. Civic leaders rubbed shoulders with military brass from MacDill, a base so crucial to the local economy that generals were treated like rock stars.

In some cases, they acted that way too.

In February 2010, Petraeus and his wife, Holly, attended their first Gasparilla Pirate Festival, a local version of Mardi Gras. He arrived at the Kelley home with a 28-motorcycle police escort and wore a long string of beads around his neck.

"They became close friends with the general," said former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who was a guest at multiple Kelley bashes. "The parties were purely social. It was a way, particularly with the coalition members, to just be a gracious hostess, to say, 'We're glad you're in Tampa.' There's nothing more to it than that."

Allen and Petraeus stayed in close touch with Kelley after they left Tampa. Although it might seem odd for a general running a war to stay in touch with a hostess back home, it's not unusual in the military world, where officers and their families frequently move and need to promote good relations with community leaders.

"She was part of that social connective tissue for generals and flag officers," said one officer.

Two years ago, Kelley strapped herself into a harness and made a tandem parachute jump with Special Operations troops, another official said. She was named an "honorary ambassador" by allied countries at Central Command and even secured a pass that allowed her to enter MacDill during daylight hours without an escort. That pass was revoked this week.

Even before the scandal broke, she had begun to wear out her welcome, flooding senior officers' inboxes with emails and requests for help organizing her social functions. Her constant presence caused some officers' aides to worry about the appearance of an attractive, outgoing woman cozying up to senior military leaders.





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Erdrich wins National Book Award for fiction

NEW YORK (AP) — Louise Erdrich's "The Round House" has won the National Book Award for fiction.

Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" won the nonfiction award Wednesday night at a New York ceremony. David Ferry's "Bewilderment" won for poetry, and William Alexander's "Goblin Secrets" won for young people's literature.

Winners each received $10,000.

Honorary prizes were given to novelist Elmore Leonard and New York Times publisher and chairman Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.

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Alzheimer’s Tied to Mutation Harming Immune Response





Alzheimer’s researchers and drug companies have for years concentrated on one hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease: the production of toxic shards of a protein that accumulate in plaques on the brain.




But now, in a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene involved in another aspect of Alzheimer’s disease: the immune system’s role in protecting against the disease. The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain’s ability to prevent the buildup of plaque.


The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer’s risk substantially in older people.


“It points very specifically to a potential metabolic pathway that you could intervene in to change the course of Alzheimer’s disease,” said William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.


Much work remains to be done before scientists understand precisely how the newly discovered gene mutation leads to Alzheimer’s, but already there are some indications from studies in mice. When the gene is not mutated, white blood cells in the brain spring into action, gobbling up and eliminating the plaque-forming toxic protein, beta amyloid. As a result, Alzheimer’s can be staved off or averted.


But when the gene is mutated, the brain’s white blood cells are hobbled, making them less effective in their attack on beta amyloid.


People with the mutated gene have a threefold to fivefold increase in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease in old age.


The intact gene, says John Hardy of University College London, “is a safety net.” And those with the mutation, he adds, “are living life without a safety net.” Dr. Hardy is lead author of one of the papers.


The discovery also suggests that a new type of drug could be developed to enhance the gene’s activity, perhaps allowing the brain’s white blood cells to do their work.


“The field is in desperate need of new therapeutic agents,” said Alison Goate, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who contributed data to Dr. Hardy’s study. “This will give us an alternative approach.”


The fact that two research groups converged on the same gene gives experts confidence in the findings. Both studies were published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Together they make a good case that this really is an Alzheimer’s gene,” said Gerard Schellenberg, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the work.


The other gene found to raise the odds that a person will get Alzheimer’s, ApoE4, is much more common and confers about the same risk as the mutated version of TREM2. But it is still not clear why ApoE4, discovered in 1993, makes Alzheimer’s more likely.


Because the mutations in the newly discovered gene are rare, occurring in no more than 2 percent of Alzheimer’s patients, it makes no sense to start screening people for them, Dr. Thies said. Instead, the discovery provides new clues to the workings of Alzheimer’s disease.


To find the gene, a research group led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics of Iceland started with a simple question.


“We asked, ‘Can we find anything in the genome that separates those who are admitted to nursing homes before the age of 75 and those who are still living at home at 85?’ ” he said.


Scientists searched the genomes of 2,261 Icelanders and zeroed in on TREM2. Mutations in that gene were more common among people with Alzheimer’s, as well as those who did not have an Alzheimer’s diagnosis but who had memory problems and might be on their way to developing Alzheimer’s.


The researchers confirmed their results by looking for the gene in people with and without Alzheimer’s in populations studied at Emory University, as well as in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany.


The TREM2 connection surprised Dr. Stefansson. Although researchers have long noticed that the brain is inflamed in Alzheimer’s patients, he had dismissed inflammation as a major factor in the disease.


“I was of the opinion that the immune system would play a fairly small role, if any, in Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Stefansson said. “This discovery cured me of that bias.”


Meanwhile, Dr. Hardy and Rita Guerreiro at University College London, along with Andrew Singleton at the National Institute on Aging, were intrigued by a strange, rare disease. Only a few patients had been identified, but their symptoms were striking. They had crumbling bones and an unusual dementia, sclerosing leukoencephalopathy.


“It’s a weird disease,” Dr. Hardy said.


He saw one patient in her 30s whose brain disease manifested in sexually inappropriate behavior. Also, her bones kept breaking. The disease was caused by mutations that disabled both the copy of TREM2 that she had inherited from her mother and the one from her father.


Eventually the researchers searched for people who had a mutation in just one copy of TREM2. To their surprise, it turned out that these people were likely to have Alzheimer’s disease.


They then asked researchers around the world who had genetic data from people with and without Alzheimer’s to look for TREM2 mutations.


“Sure enough, they had good evidence,” Dr. Hardy said. The mutations occurred in one-half of 1 percent of the general population but in 1 to 2 percent of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.


“That is a big effect,” Dr. Hardy said.


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Looming 'fiscal cliff' bringing Wall Street, Obama back together









NEW YORK — There are growing signs that Wall Street is trying to mend its rocky relationship with a president who castigated them as "fat cats" and ushered through tough new regulations after the financial crisis.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has recently been in contact with the White House and congressional leaders, while Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein publicly called for a new "spirit of compromise and reconciliation." CEOs of 12 major American companies also held a closed-door meeting with President Obama on Wednesday.

The looming "fiscal cliff" is bringing businesses and Obama back together. Both sides are worried that Congress won't strike a deal to avoid the automatic budget cuts and tax increases that economists fear will plunge the nation into a recession early next year.





"He is the president — the election is over," said Kathryn Wylde, president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization that represents major financial firms and other companies. "The Wall Street community wants to unite behind a strong president."

Wall Street might have overwhelmingly supported Mitt Romney's presidential campaign with donations, but executives have been quietly working behind the scenes with administration officials for months, Wylde said.

Quiz: How much do you know about the "fiscal cliff"?

They have been helping build support for raising revenue — higher taxes — as part of a deal that would include spending cuts and entitlement reform. Getting CEOs on board could help provide "political cover" to congressional Republicans who in previous fiscal fights have thwarted deals with Obama.

"That's where their charm is real," said Jeff Connaughton, a former lobbyist and congressional aide who wrote the book "The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins." "If they actually helped soften up the Republicans on being OK with raising revenue, that's where they could pile up some real brownie points with Obama."

Wall Street executives have been reaching out to both sides of the aisle now that the contentious election is over.

In an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal, Goldman CEO Blankfein urged corporations and the Obama administration to work closer together. He also backed tax increases for wealthy Americans so long as the government is serious about cutting government spending.

Dimon, who has sometimes been a critic of Obama, met with White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew last month. He also has reached out to congressional leaders about preventing a fiscal crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

As part of that charm offensive, Dimon even called Elizabeth Warren to congratulate her on being elected a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Warren has been a fierce critic of the banking industry, and earlier this year called for Dimon to step down as a New York Federal Reserve board member because of a perceived conflict of interest.

Warren declined to comment on her phone call with Dimon. But she — like others on Capitol Hill on Wednesday — welcomed the Wall Street executives' urgency to resolve the fiscal cliff. "I think they have enormous value to add to the discussions," she said.

CEOs talking about a willingness to accept more taxes is crucial in helping to reduce the overall rancor in Washington, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. When Republicans start talking about additional tax revenue, "We need somebody else to have their back, and the business community is a great place" to do that, he said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said business leaders can help spur a deal by warning of the economic consequences of allowing the government to go over the fiscal cliff.

"The election's over and the issue is fixing the debt," Alexander said. "They can create an environment in which senators and congressman are willing to take difficult votes on fixing the debt, because it's going to be hard dirty work, very unpopular, once people see the details of it, but it absolutely has to be done."

At the White House on Wednesday, chief executives met with President Obama for more than an hour to discuss topics such as the fiscal cliff. They mostly listened and tried to give the president constructive feedback on issues facing America's biggest businesses, according to participants.

CEOs believe that the uncertainty is hurting the nation's business climate and preventing hiring. They have urged Congress to extend the tax cuts first championed by President George W. Bush. Obama wants to do so for all but the highest income earners.

Ursula Burns, the CEO of Xerox Corp., said the meeting did not get into specifics such as tax rates. But she noted that any deal would involve working through "some sticky issues."

"This is all about trying to make American business more competitive, trying to have a fair, balanced approach to tax reform, to spending cuts. And the president was very clear that he wants a fair, balanced approach," Burns told reporters after the meeting.

"We were very clear that if we can help him to get to a solution we are absolutely behind him, because going over the cliff is not something that any of us in the room could live with," she said.

andrew.tangel@latimes.com

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Tangel reported from New York and Puzzanghera from Washington.





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GOP senators cool to idea of Susan Rice as secretary of State









WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans signaled stiffening resistance Tuesday to the Obama administration's possible nomination of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State.

GOP strategists said lawmakers would use such a nomination as an opening for an extended examination of how the administration handled the Sept. 11 militant attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. Although the Senate rarely rejects a president's Cabinet picks, the strategists said, the process could be so painful and lengthy that Obama might come to regret his choice.

A senior Republican aide said he couldn't predict whether the nomination would be voted down, but "the question is, is this worth spending political capital and taking punches on a subject they'd like to distance themselves from?"

"Whether it's fair to her or not, she's become a poster child for perceptions that there's been a coverup by the administration," he said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to address the topic publicly.

Some Senate Republicans have already begun discussing how they would question Rice, he said, and plan to gather information from House Republican colleagues to bore in on questions they say the administration has not yet satisfactorily answered.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters he considered Rice "tainted" by her role in the administration's handling of Benghazi, and recommended that the White House instead choose Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whom administration officials have also been considering for the diplomatic post.

Administration officials said that Rice, a pillar of Obama's foreign policy team since the 2008 election campaign, was a leading candidate for the post, and that they would not be deterred by Republican warnings. Officials and some others familiar with the process predicted that the GOP would eventually end its resistance to Rice because it would become clear that her disputed comments after the attack were prepared by other U.S. officials for her appearances on Sept. 16 talk shows.

Rice said in those TV appearances that the attack was motivated by anger at a U.S.-made film trailer that denounced the prophet Muhammad, and that it was not a planned assault.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is expected to become the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, found it "beyond belief" that Rice could have described the attack as motivated by anger over the film, when U.S. officials in Benghazi had told officials in Washington during the attack that it was a terrorist assault.

"I still don't know how anybody of that capacity could have been on television five days later saying the things that were said," Corker said. "I don't know how that could happen."

On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an influential Republican on foreign policy issues, predicted that Rice's nomination would have a difficult time making it through the Senate. He said he would not vote for Rice unless she provided more satisfactory explanations of her actions.

A single senator can hold up a nomination if he or she is determined to do so. But a more likely avenue to blocking confirmation would be with a filibuster, aides said. Sixty votes are required to end a filibuster — more than the number of senators in the Democratic caucus.

Senate aides said the Republican caucus, which is regrouping after the election defeat, might decide that shooting down Obama's choice would be a way of underscoring its unhappiness with the administration's treatment of the Benghazi issue. But historically, the Senate has deferred to presidents on Cabinet picks, and Republicans would run the risk of looking unreasonable.

Clinton's intention to leave the post has been public for more than a year, and the candidacies of Rice and Kerry have been discussed for months. Both are interested in the job.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Rice was the leading candidate for the diplomatic post and Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, was under consideration as secretary of Defense. If Kerry took either post, Republicans would have a chance to win his Senate seat in a special election — further narrowing the Democrats' majority.

Sources who have been familiar with past nominations say that Obama confers with only a small circle on his top choices, and sometimes emerges with surprise selections. Jim Yong Kim, Obama's choice to head the World Bank, was one such case.

As a second-term president, Obama has wide latitude to pick the candidate he believes will best serve his interests. He is under less pressure to satisfy political constituencies, some Democrats pointed out.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, declined to comment on the nomination, but said Obama believed Rice had done an "excellent job" at the United Nations.

paul.richter@latimes.com

Michael Memoli and Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.



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Man who accused Elmo puppeteer of teen sex recants

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who accused Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash of having sex with him when he was a teenage boy has recanted his story.


In a quick turnabout, the man on Tuesday described his sexual relationship with Clash as adult and consensual.


Clash responded with a statement of his own, saying he is "relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest." He had no further comment.


The man, who has not identified himself, released his statement through the Harrisburg, Pa., law firm Andreozzi & Associates.


Sesame Workshop, which produces "Sesame Street" in New York, soon followed by saying, "We are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode."

The whirlwind episode began Monday morning, when Sesame Workshop startled the world by announcing that Clash had taken a leave of absence from "Sesame Street" in the wake of allegations that he had had a relationship with a 16-year-old.


Clash, a 52-year-old divorced father of a grown daughter, swiftly denied the charges of his accuser, who is in his early 20s. In that statement Clash acknowledged that he is gay but said the relationship had been between two consenting adults.


Though it remained unclear where the relationship took place, sex with a person under 17 is a felony in New York if the perpetrator is at least 21.


Sesame Workshop, which said it was first contacted by the accuser in June, had launched an investigation that included meeting with the accuser twice and meeting with Clash. Its investigation found the charge of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated.


Clash said on Monday he would take a break from Sesame Workshop "to deal with this false and defamatory allegation."


Neither Clash nor Sesame Workshop indicated on Tuesday when he might return to the show, on which he has performed as Elmo since 1984.


Elmo had previously been a marginal character, but Clash, supplying the fuzzy red puppet with a high-pitched voice and a carefree, child-like personality, launched the character into major stardom. Elmo soon rivaled Big Bird as the face of "Sesame Street."


Though usually behind the scenes, Clash meanwhile achieved his own measure of fame. In 2006, he published an autobiography, "My Life as a Furry Red Monster," and he was the subject of the 2011 documentary "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey."


He has won 23 daytime Emmy awards and one prime-time Emmy.


___


Online:


http://www.sesamestreet.org

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Kidney Donors Given Mandatory Safeguards


ST. LOUIS — Addressing long-held concerns about whether organ donors have adequate protections, the country’s transplant regulators acted late Monday to require that hospitals thoroughly inform living kidney donors of the risks they face, fully evaluate their medical and psychological suitability, and then track their health for two years after donation.


Enactment of the policies by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant system under a federal contract, followed six years of halting development and debate.


Meeting at a St. Louis hotel, the group’s board voted to establish uniform minimum standards for a field long regarded as a medical and ethical Wild West. The organ network, whose initial purpose was to oversee donation from people who had just died, has struggled at times to keep pace with rapid developments in donations from the living.


“There is no question that this is a major development in living donor protection,” said Dr. Christie P. Thomas, a nephrologist at the University of Iowa and the chairman of the network’s living donor committee.


Yet some donor advocates complained that the measures did not go far enough, and argued that the organ network, in its mission to encourage transplants, has a conflict of interest when it comes to safeguarding donors.


Three years ago, the network issued some of the same policies as voluntary guidelines, only to have the Department of Health and Human Services insist they be made mandatory.


Although long-term data on the subject is scarce, few living kidney donors are thought to suffer lasting physical or psychological effects. Kidney donations, known as nephrectomies, are typically done laparoscopically these days through a series of small incisions. The typical patient may spend only a few nights in a hospital and feel largely recovered after several months.


Kidneys are by far the most transplanted organs, and there have been nearly as many living donors as deceased ones over the last decade. What data is available suggests that those with one kidney typically live as long as those with two, and that the risk of a donor dying during the procedure is roughly 3 in 10,000.


But kidney transplants, like all surgery, can sometimes end in catastrophe.


In May at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, a 41-year-old mother of three died when her aorta was accidentally cut during surgery to donate a kidney to her brother. In other recent isolated cases, patients have received donor kidneys infected with undetected H.I.V. or hepatitis C.


Less clear are any longer-term effects on donors. Research conducted by the United Network for Organ Sharing shows that of roughly 70,000 people who donated kidneys between late 1999 and early 2011, 27 died within two years of medical causes that may — or may not — have been related to donation. For a small number of donors, their remaining kidney failed, and they required dialysis or a transplant.


The number of living donors — 5,770 in 2011 — has dropped 10 percent over the last two years, possibly because the struggling economy has made it difficult for prospective donors to take time off from work to recuperate. With the national kidney waiting list now stretching past 94,000 people, and thousands on the list dying each year, transplant officials have said they must improve confidence in the system so more people will donate.


The average age of donors has been rising, posing additional medical risks. And new ethical questions have been raised by the emergence of paired kidney exchanges and transplant chains started by good Samaritans who give an organ to a stranger.


Brad Kornfeld, who donated a kidney to his father in 2004, told the board that it had been impossible to find good information about what to expect, leaving him to search for answers on unreliable Internet chat rooms. He said he had almost backed out.


“If information is power,” said Mr. Kornfeld, a Coloradan who serves on the living donor committee, “the lack of information is crippling.”


Under the policies approved this week, the organ network will require hospitals to collect medical data, including laboratory test results, on most living donors to study lasting effects. Results must be reported at six months, one year and two years.


Similar regulations have been in place since 2000, but they did not require blood and urine testing, and hospitals were allowed to report donors who could not be found as simply lost.


That happened often. In recent years, hospitals have submitted basic clinical information — like whether donors were alive or dead — for only 65 percent of donors and lab data for fewer than 40 percent, according to the organ network. Although the network holds the authority, no hospital has ever been seriously sanctioned for noncompliance.


“It’s time we put some teeth into our policy,” said Jill McMaster, a board member from Tennessee.


By 2015, transplant programs will have to report thorough clinical information on at least 80 percent of donors and lab results on at least 70 percent. The requirements phase in at lower levels for the next two years.


Dr. Stuart M. Flechner of the Cleveland Clinic, the chairman of a coalition of medical societies that made recommendations to the organ network, said 9 of 10 hospitals would currently not meet the new requirement.


Donna Luebke, a kidney donor from Ohio who once served on the organ network’s board, said the new standards would matter only if enforcement were more rigorous. She noted that the organization was dominated by transplant doctors: “UNOS is nothing but the foxes watching the henhouse,” she said.


Another of the new regulations prescribes in detail the medical and psychological screenings that hospitals must conduct for potential donors. It requires automatic exclusion if the potential donor has diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension or H.I.V., among other conditions.


The new policies also require that hospitals appoint an independent advocate to counsel and represent donors, and that donors receive detailed information in advance about medical, psychological and financial risks.


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McAfee proclaims innocence, alters look to evade Belize police









In another twist to an already bizarre story, the founder of the McAfee anti-virus software company contacted an American journalist Tuesday to maintain his innocence and chronicle how he has been evading police.

John McAfee, 67, has been missing since Sunday morning, when his next-door neighbor Gregory Faull, 52, was found dead in a pool of blood in a Belize beachfront home. On Tuesday, McAfee contacted Wired contributing editor Joshua Davis and said he's on the run, scared for his life — and did not commit murder.

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Belize police on Sunday said they wanted to question McAfee in what they described as a homicide investigation.

Davis tweeted the salient details, including the former CEO saying he feared being killed in custody and — when power was cut to his hiding spot — the grim summation that "this is it."

"Under no circumstances am I going to willingly talk to the police in this country," McAfee reportedly told the editor at the technology magazine. "You can say I'm paranoid about it but they will kill me, there is no question. They've been trying to get me for months. They want to silence me. I am not well liked by the prime minister. I am just a thorn in everybody's side."

As police raided his compound Sunday, McAfee told the writer that he hid in the sand with a cardboard box over his head so he could breathe, and spent the night on a mattress infested with lice. He has continued to change locations, according to the writer's tweets.

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"It was extraordinarily uncomfortable," McAfee told Wired. "But they will kill me if they find me."

Belize police urged McAfee to come forward Tuesday, saying he is only a person of interest, rather than a murder suspect. The police said they have detained an individual but declined to discuss details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Police have a vendetta against him, McAfee told Wired, and are trying to drive him out of Belize.

McAfee made his fortune when the anti-virus company that bears his name went public in 1992. He netted $100 million two years later when he sold his stock. Over the next 20 years, $100 million dropped to $4 million as he lost money to real estate investments, bad business ventures and bonds linked to Lehman Bros.

About five years ago, McAfee moved to a beachfront compound on Ambergris Caye island to lower his taxes, said Daniel Guerrero, the mayor of the town closest to the crime scene.

Belize police arrested McAfee in April and charged him with unlicensed drug manufacturing and possession of an unlicensed weapon, according to police news releases. McAfee said at the time that he planned to sue for false arrest, alleging the police arrested him because he refused to donate money to a local official.

Last week, Faull — a retired contractor from Florida — filed a complaint against McAfee with the local city council, Guerrero said. McAfee's security guards were trespassing on Faull's property, and McAfee's guard dogs were attacking passers-by, Faull's complaint said.

Faull's two-story apartment showed no signs of forced entry. A laptop and iPhone were missing, and police found a 9-millimeter Luger shell casing on the stairs, spokesman Raphael Martinez said.

Police believe McAfee is still in the country but have had little success in tracking him down, perhaps due in part to the latest information he shared with Davis — that he has radically altered his appearance.

laura.nelson@latimes.com





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